Performance Video Hard Drive Archive Help

[Grundlebug]

Forgive the long post 8)

Here's the scoop - I work for a dance company. We have a huge performance archive on a variety of media (DV, DVD, VHS). Our dancers, rehearsal directors, and booking people are constantly in need of DVDs with a variety of dances on them from a variety of these sources.

Ideally, I'd like to have a video workstation, with at least our most recent dances (25 hours total, approximately 15 - 25 minutes per dance) organized into a video archive that everyone could use to then burn the various dances they need onto a basic DVD (no menu or very simple menu) for rehearsals, etc.

I'm really struggling with formats here - both media and codec formats.

We receive footage of our performances from our videographer on DV and DVD. I have been transferring some older footage from VHS to DVD using a Panasonic DVDR/VHS machine - which has its own problems, in order to copy discs made from this machine I have to use FixVTS to be able to copy this unencrypted DVD with Nero. I have been using ReJig to pull the needed dances of the DVDs and then GUI for DVDAUTHOR to then author custom DVDs.

It's a decent system that has mostly worked well for me but there are a couple problems. The system is too complex for our dancers/rehearsal directors - computers aren't their strong suit. And due to hard drive space considerations, once a dance is ripped to the hard drive I can't keep it there long before I have to delete to make space for another project.

I'm thinking there has to be a better way - a smoother workflow. I'm thinking there must be some MPEG4 codec that will give me the balance in quality and file size that I need for this application (I have Xilisoft DVD ripper and a variety of freeware tools). But between the various codecs, configurations, resolutions, and programs available I'm having a hard time putting it all together.

Rehearsal copies and booking tapes only need to be broadcast TV quality, or slightly lower. For more formal applications I can use the source material to make at least an MPEG2 rip. If the file size were small enough it seems I could have a repository of .avi files that could be easily burned to a DVD for rehearsal use, using a program like ConverXtoDVD or something similar. Preferably with a very simple user interface.

I have some experience working with digital video and I'm more than competent on the computer (Windows and Linux), but I'm at a bit of a loss on this. Any suggestions on how I can make this happen would be greatly appreciated.

[Soopafresh]

I can imagine the problem. I like the idea of ConvertXtoDVD - one of the fastest encoders out there, but you'll still need a fairly fast machine to encode and burn - Intel E6400 or faster.

An option is to create Xvid/DivX files and include a tiny free player, like Gmplayer on the CD that you give to the end user. Include both a Windows and OSX version on the disk.

Easy to create both MPGs and Divx files with Winmenc

Download Winmenc http://yawoogle.googlepages.com/winmenc.0.61.zip

Download MPlayer http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/builds/mplayer-p4-svn-22220.7z

Download Mencoder http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/builds/mencoder-p4-svn-22220.7z

Download PthreadGC2 ftp://sourceware.org/pub/pthreads-win32/dll-latest/lib/pthreadGC2.dll

Place all in the same folder. Run Winmenc.


This will create Xvid Divx Mpeg1 Mpeg2 and h264 (in avi container), all 2 pass options available.

[oldandinthe way]

Space should not be a problem. Recent sales have made external USB drives of 400gb or more under $99.

If you have already authored DVDs it is easy enough to rip then to their own folder and then use Nero or Imgburn to write DVDs.

Although you will not need its main features, DVDshrink could serve as your ripper, it conveniently asks for a folder name for the destination every rip. A 400gb USB drive should hold the equivalent of 100 2hour DVDs.

Hardware is cheap. Throwing hardware at a problem will reduce the time and expertise required for a solution.

[redwudz]

Probably simplistic, but I would divide them into 3 hour segments of MPEG video, authored to a DVD. 25 hours would only take up about 9 DVDs. You could store the ISOs of the DVDs on a hard drive, about 40GB. Then all you need to do is drop a blank DVD into a burner and hand them the DVD a few minutes later. If you were short of hard drive space, then just use the archive DVDs and copy them to a new disc.

I realize they might want one dance off one DVD and another dance off a different DVD, but how much is your time worth? Even if you gave them all 9 DVDs, that would be cheaper than the time and effort it takes to either encode or author for each custom request. They should be able to easily find the video they want from the DVD menu.

3 hours of TV or better quality is easy enough to get on a DVD. If your bitrate is too low, try 1/2D1 format ( 352 x 480 pixels MPEG2) instead of full D1 (720 x 480 pixels MPEG2) The advantage of the DVD format is that anybody with a home player can watch it. If you use a AVI type format, it would need converted to DVD format or they would only be able to watch it on a computer. Unless they have a Divx player.

[Soopafresh]

I like redwudz's idea...

[Grundlebug]

These are good suggestions. Thanks. You all are helping me sort out my thinking on this.

I think a very large hard drive just might be the solution I need.

Having each dance separate is actually a pretty important part of the whole process. But the dances are usually on the videographer's dvds as their own title. I've only used DVD Shrink a little but couldn't I just rip each title into it's own folder? Does DVD Shrink create an .mpeg or a .vob and associated files? I know Xilisoft can rip to a single file like that.

If I have an .mpeg or .vob file that's mpeg2 encoded, my authoring software shouldn't have to do any transcoding, correct? Then burning a variety of dances should be fairly easy, no? In fact, the default, Nero authoring program could probably put together a slick little menu. And without transcoding I don't need the $400 Core2Duo.

Man, I should've thought through the hardware issue. 400GB would be plenty.

[thecoalman]

If I have an .mpeg or .vob file that's mpeg2 encoded, my authoring software shouldn't have to do any transcoding, correct?

With something like NERO the answer is no, at best with a consumer app you could hope it only transcodes the video that doesn't match the settings you have selected. If you have video coming from multiple DVD's they most likely are not the same. However you can use something like DVD Workshop which supports multi VTS allowing you video with different bitrates, resolutions or even aspects. DVD Lab Pro also supports this but you need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out, i think I saw someone mention TDA does too but I'm not sure.

DVD Workshop is not cheap so if that's not up your alley you need to convert all the video to the same specs so you can author with a consumer application.

[Grundlebug]

thecoalman was right. I experimented with the VTS files made by DVD Shrink and ran into the very problem you described.

After a bit of experimenting this afternoon, I think I've come up with a good solution, that was so easy I don't know why I was having so much trouble.

I used ReJig in IFO mode to import each dance off the DVD separately, which was quick even on our old PIII computer. This creates the .m2v and .ac3 files. I did this with two different DVDs with different resolution and bit rate settings.

Then I dropped the demuxed files into GUI for DVDAuthor, which handled the differences just fine and created a working DVD.

Total time to rip, reorder, and burn 3 different dances - 25 minutes.

Easy!

So with a 400 GB hard drive I should be able to set up the archive I was talking about - and with a little tweaking and a little instruction, my coworkers should be able to burn a simple DVD with GUI for DVDAuthor without much hassle, and I'll be able to compile more elaborate DVDs in minutes.

Thanks for all the suggestions and helping me sort this out.